e naked?
Thy repute, that hath hitherto been so great, will be known to have
been false; and shouldst thou seek to frame lying excuses for thyself,
(if indeed there are any to be found) the accursed scholar, who
knoweth all thine affairs, will not suffer thee lie. Oh wretched
woman, that wilt at one stroke have lost the youth so ill-fatedly
beloved and thine own honour!'

Therewithal she fell into such a passion of woe that she was like to
cast herself down from the tower to the ground; but, the sun being now
risen and she drawing near to one side of the walls of the tower, to
look if any boy should pass with cattle, whom she might send for her
maid, it chanced that the scholar, who had slept awhile at the foot
of a bush, awaking, saw her and she him; whereupon quoth he to her,
'Good day, madam; are the damsels come yet?' The lady, seeing and
hearing him, began afresh to weep sore and besought him to come within
the tower, so she might speak with him. In this he was courteous
enough to comply with her and she laying herself prone on the platform
and showing only her head at the opening, said, weeping, 'Assuredly,
Rinieri, if I gave thee an ill night, thou hast well avenged thyself
of me, for that, albeit it is July, I have thought to freeze this
night, naked as I am, more by token that I have so sore bewept both
the trick I put upon thee and mine own folly in believing thee that it
is a wonder I have any eyes left in my head. Wherefore I entreat thee,
not for the love of me, whom thou hast no call to love, but for the
love of thyself, who are a gentleman, that thou be content, for
vengeance of the injury I did thee, with that which thou hast already
done and cause fetch me my clothes and suffer me come down hence, nor
seek to take from me that which thou couldst not after restore me, an
thou wouldst, to wit, my honour; for, if I took from thee the being
with me that night, I can render thee many nights for that one,
whenassoever it liketh thee. Let this, then, suffice and let it
content thee, as a man of honour, to have availed to avenge thyself
and to have caused me confess it. Seek not to use thy strength against
a woman; no glory is it for an eagle to have overcome a dove,
wherefore, for the love of God and thine own honour, have pity on me.'

The scholar, with stern mind revolving in himself the injury suffered
and seeing her weep and beseech, felt at once both pleasure and annoy;
pleasure in the revenge which he